A Galaxy Unknown
by TuscanKB
Summary: My first story on this site, it was a place for me to write about how I envisioned the Halo Universe after the Great War. Was supposed to be a crossover of possibly Star Wars or Mass Effect but I never got that far. May one day be continued but unlikely.
1. Chapter 1

**0600 Hours 2567**

 **UNSC Destroyer Magnolia**

 **Unknown System**

As Captain Macmillan sat aboard his vessel the UNSC Halberd-class destroyer Magnolia, he couldn't help but stare longingly at the stars. When ONI had roped his vessel into a small taskforce that was to search the surrounding systems for forerunner artifacts he was excited. But as the ships in auxiliary taskforce Leviathan had followed the strange forerunner signal on a wild goose chase for days now he was beginning to regret his earlier excitement.

Of course every captain in the UNSC knew of the legendary forerunner artifacts and the technological wonders they often contained, but was it worth his and his bridge crew's sanity? "Lieutenant Ford report" he half muttered. As the com officer listed off the as usual boring data she mentioned something that caught his attention. "Captain, sir, I'm picking up a strange frequency of some kind on coms, I'm trying to isolate it but it keeps bouncing around the system. Strange, from what I can tell it seems forerunner in origin but it's a garbled mess, might as well be alphabet soup."

He then turned to his close friend and sensor officer Lieutenant David Heart, "David can you locate the signals origin?" "Negative sir, there's just too much damn interference, we could try scouring the system manually but that could take days, even with other ships" Replied the Lieutenant. The captain though for a minute and then looked towards the center of his bridge at the holo-table. He addressed his ships resident AI, "Jay launch some probes and see if we can set up a grid around the solar system to triangulate the source." Jay appeared on the holo-table as a small blueish figure in the armor of a sixteenth century knight. "Aye sir, and may I suggest roping the Blackwater into our little operation as well?"

Macmillan took a moment to respond, the Blackwater was a relatively new Autumn-class heavy cruiser that was searching one of the many systems in the area for Forerunner artifacts. "Contact Captain Evelyan I'll talk it over with her." Then on the bridges main display screen the middle aged face of Captain Evelyan appeared. "Captain Macmillan, I understand you could use some help?"

"Ahh, Captain Evelyan, yes we've detected what we think is a forerunner signal in system but were having trouble locking it down, we are about to deploy a number of probes, but with our combined sensor readings it would go much faster, is your ship available to assist?" As the conversation between the two captains continued Captain Evelyan revealed that they too had been extremely bored and had already finished scans of their assigned system without finding much of anything, so they jumped at the chance for some "action."

As he ended the transmission Jay let him know that the Blackwater would arrive in a little over an hour. "Very good, now we have some space junk to find, let's get to it." The crew heard a soft "thump" sound as a number of probes launched from the destroyer.

 **0900 Planet Reach**

 **Classified ONI Facility**

Meanwhile as the Magnolia set up its many probes to help triangulate the strange message, Commander Hearthgrove of ONI Section III was busy trying to get to a meeting, a meeting she was very much late for. "Incoming, move out of the way!" She yelled as she half sprinted down the halls of the ONI facility.

Commander Hearthgrove was a little of an oddity in ONI, when it was revealed that the forerunners had left the mantle to humanity some took it seriously, almost like a religion, and Maria Hearthgrove was one of those people. She wasn't overly crazy or forceful with her beliefs, but she earned some eyes from a number of her higher ups concerning her views on forerunner tech. She was a self-proclaimed "expert" on the stuff and she didn't often disappoint.

Combine that with her belief that as the forerunner's chosen inheritors all forerunner technology was rightfully humanity's and ready for the taking she was the perfect fit for a great many projects involving the recovery and research of forerunner artifacts. After arriving in the meeting room she immediately took her seat, her long blonde hair swinging in the wind as she hurriedly sat down. Her superiors eyed her suspiciously but they didn't mention her tardiness. "Ahem, now that we're all here let us begin. Now this particular committee was formed just under 13 years ago to discover and research the forerunners and the benefits their technologies can present to us.

Some of you have been here since that time and some of you are new. But our hard work has not been for nothing, humanity is reaping the benefits of forerunner technology, and I'm not just talking about civilian technologies. Our military has recovered tenfold since the end of the war, and not just in numbers. Technologically we are not just a match; we are ahead when compared with the Sangheili or the others former covenant races. This last decade has been an unprecedented technological golden age, and I have someone here who wants to thank you for your efforts.

As everyone looked around confused the image of Admiral Serin Osman appeared on the holo-table facing the now shocked group of people. "Ladies and gentleman, I know some of you may be confused right now, but I wanted to thank you all personally for the great work you have been doing these last several years."

Of course everyone knew who Serin Osman was, the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence, their bosses boss. No one messed with Osman, she was known as a cold and often heartless soul, but she did what was necessary to protect and advance humanity. "Your work has helped us recover from the war quicker than ever thought imaginable, now this isn't just praise to boost your ego, I'm also here to tell you that you have a new job, but before I start with that I would like an update on your efforts on recovering forerunner technology.

Commander Hearthgrove please inform all of us on your most recent project." Maria stood up somewhat shocked by the callout. "Uhhh yes admiral!" She hastily said. "Last week the light frigate UNSC Glass Cannon detected a strange signal thought to be originating from a cluster of about 2 dozen star systems while on patrol at the edge of our space. The signal was reported by the ship's commanding officer as it seemed to resemble forerunner signals we've encountered in the past, but the ships AI couldn't make heads or tails of it.

When analyzing said signal I was only able to narrow down the signal to about a dozen star systems. Considering the importance forerunner technology represents I got permission to assemble a small task force to search these systems for the suspected forerunner artifact. This task force, auxiliary battlegroup Leviathan, is made up of 2 Halberd-Class destroyers 3 heavy frigates and 2 autumn-class heavy cruisers."

This made Osman speak up after taking in what the commander had said. "Commander that seems like a large amount of ships and firepower, even for forerunner artifacts, I hope you have a reason for this seemingly misallocation of resources?"

"Why yes admiral I do, you see when I first examined the forerunner signal something happened to peak my interest. It was different from other signals we've encountered before, nothing like I've ever seen, and I've examined a great number of forerunner artifacts. My bet is that we're looking at possibly another shield world or more likely something else entirely, what it is I can't say but it seems to be important, but in my opinion any piece of forerunner tech is important." "Noted commander, if you believe this is important then I'll take your word for it, but be advised I'm watching you." This made Maria gulp, she knew she was viewed as a rising star in ONI but she didn't know she had caught the eye of someone as high up as Osman. Normally having someone like Osman watching you was never a good thing, but she hoped that her hard work may have earned her another promotion.

Although she was a little young to be a commander, at 34 she had proved she was a hard worker and quite brilliant. She stopped this line of thinking almost immediately, self-flattery was enjoyable and all, but never let it get to your head lest you become arrogant, and in her line of work arrogance could be a death sentence. As the meeting was finishing up she took a quick glance at her data pad and read over a few messages, what she saw excited her. "Does anyone else having something to add" Said another officer.

Maria spoke up, "yes I have something else to add; I have just received word that the Halberd-Class heavy destroyer Magnolia has isolated the forerunner signal to a single system. They are having difficulties getting an exact position but the Autumn-Class heavy cruiser the Blackwater is on its way to assist and I suspect they will have something in about a day. I would like to request to go and research whatever it is they find."

"Excellent news commander, very well I will authorize your request, but be careful, you don't know what they could find, god forbid it's the flood, last thing we need is an outbreak of that damn parasite."


	2. Chapter 2

**0900 hours 2567**

 **UNSC Destroyer Magnolia**

 **Unknown System**

As captain Macmillan stared intently at his bridge crew he couldn't help but wonder what they would find. Would this forerunner artifact be a magnificent shield world, some ancient outpost? Or possibly even another Halo, no surely it couldn't be a Halo, they would have detected an object so large, and a shield world as well was far too large for them to not have found by now.

Then he heard a beeping sound and looked down at a console to see a blinking red light. "Sir the Blackwater has arrived in system and they are ready to assists" Said a crewman. "Very good, what is their location?" "They are approximately 120000 kilometers away from us; we should rendezvous in about 17 minutes." "Jay coordinate your sensor sweeps with the Blackwater's AI." "Yes captain, the Blackwater is currently launching their probes around the system, the grid should be ready in about 4 hours, and the extra probes have cut our time in half, if not more.

"All we can do now is wait and see I guess" said David. "Oh and by the way captain the ONI spook that set this whole goose chase up has just informed me that she will be arriving in system in about a day to research whatever it is we find, she seems quite excited." As the captain again took to staring blankly at the stars he just hoped whatever it was they found was good enough for ONI, he really didn't want to be on their shit list.

 **1100 hours 2567**

 **Orbit, Planet Reach**

As commander Hearthgrove gingerly stepped onto her pelican transport she could barely contain her excitement. The pelican was to ferry her to the UNSC Alcove in orbit which was her ticket to the system where the forerunner artifact was supposed to be. But even more exciting was the fact that the Alcove was not just any ship, it was a Prometheus-class heavy carrier.

You see after the war ended the UNSC found itself in an untenable position. Its fleets, if you could even call what ships they had left in some places a fleet, were decimated. Most of the UNSC's heavy cruisers that remained after the fall of Reach were destroyed at Earth with only a handful of frigates remaining for planetary defense, as well as the severely crippled orbital defense grid.

The few other ships that were left were spread thin protecting the few remaining UNSC colonies. As the UNSC scrambled to crank out more ships the already overflowed shipyards at Mars couldn't even hope to produce ships large enough or in substantial numbers to act as fleet command vessels.

A good option was carriers, but all of them were destroyed at Reach with the notable exception of the Trafalgar, a Punic-class supercarrier which had fled the system due to heavy damage sustained during the fight. It had limped to the nearest repair yard capable of handling it and practically fell apart. As maddening as it was the pride of the _Epsilon Eridani defense fleet wouldn't have been space worthy for the battle of Earth or a significant amount of time after._

 _Faced with this predicament the UNSC brass came up with an old yet genius idea. Taking a page from Admiral Cole's scrapbook a number of Phoenix-class colony ships were refitted heavily for fleet command and carrier duty. They had already been modified similarly to that of the long lost UNSC Spirit of Fire but were even more so upgraded with the implementation of even thicker armor and room for over a hundred and fifty fighters and bombers._

 _The UNSC had enough materials left to construct a small fleet and had large amounts of fighter craft, bombers, and ground units remaining in production yards around the sol system and the other few facility's left in UNSC space. Yet the problem was not resources, it was the time it would take to build new ships, so the heavily upgraded colony ships would have to do._

 _At first commanders took them with a grain of salt, no one was keen to take refitted colony ships as the center of their task forces, but much like the Spirit of Fire the ships began to show their strength and tactical usefulness. At 2863 meters in lengths and with 5 meters of titanium A battle plating they could take punishment, and dish it out to. Although mainly relying on their strike craft for offensive and defensive action the ships had received a MAC gun and 30 archer missile pods as well as significant AA emplacements._

 _They were so loved that about 6 years after their first introduction in 2554 an entire class of carrier was designed with the now obsolete ships in mind. At 3000 meters in length and with much heavier weaponry and armor the ships were exceedingly powerful. But the most important upgrade was a shield generator._

 _During the war the UNSC was at such a disadvantage solely due to the covenant's energy shielding most naval victory's, if you could even call them victories, were absurdly costly. A single covenant CCS-class battlecruiser could take up to 3 mac rounds from a heavy cruiser to even breach their shields. Though nowadays almost all UNSC ships were equipped with energy shielding, at the time it was revolutionary._

 _This particular Prometheus-class heavy carrier, the Alcove, had quite a bit of history to its name. Construction of the vessel finished on May 2_ _nd_ _2562 and was immediately assigned to Captain Artur Bogdan. Captain Bogdan was born on the UNSC colony world of Talista which was located in the Sverdlovsk_ system. Being one of the few colonies that the covenant didn't find and glass it was spared the horrors of the war. After joining the navy in 2547 at the age of 32 he finished training and was immediately assigned as a Lieutenant on board the light frigate the UNSC Calypso.

After the Calypso's captain and all other senior officers were killed during a skirmish with a covenant corvette Bogdan managed to take command and destroy a corvette with expert maneuvering and a full volley of archer missiles. Due to the UNSC's lack of officers at the time he was instated as captain and it remained that way until the end of the war when he was reassigned to a destroyer.

But unfortunately for the captain his efforts to protect his family failed. Ironically it wasn't the Covenant who killed them; due to Talista being one of the few remaining UNSC colonies after the war insurrectionists who fled there set up shop. And it was during a terrorist attack in 2560 that his as well as many other families were killed when the innies detonated a dirty bomb in the downtown area of one of the planets main cities. After the whole mess was cleaned up and the local police force pulled their heads out of their asses they began to hunt down the suspects with little mercy. The insurrectionists claimed that it was a rogue and radical element that didn't represent their cause but it was little comfort to the civilian population who quickly ousted them and forced them to flee the planet.

At the time the poor captain had been on his way back from patrol to go see his family and take some leave. When he entered the system and found out that the insurrectionists had been hiding in the systems asteroid belt he immediately requested to take part in the operation to hunt them down. His ship the destroyer Agamemnon immediately began searching with backup from the heavy cruiser Axe Phoenix. But once again the insurrection struck. After crippling the Axe Phoenix and forcing the ship to flee the asteroid belt during a particularly nasty surprise attack he found himself cut off and surrounded by a much larger force than what was previously thought. Unwilling to retreat he set up his ships compliment of nukes on the surrounding asteroids he baited the enemy into his trap and detonated the mines wiping out all enemy forces, a total of 7 vessels.

Once the battle was finished and he had cleared the asteroid field he assisted the Axe Phoenix and received a hero's welcome when he visited the memorial for the attack. Seeing a golden opportunity ONI Section Two set him up as the new face of anti-insurrection operations. Thanks to his brilliant victory and ruthlessness towards the insurrection, who he rightfully blamed from his family's death, he was given command of a taskforce which sole purpose was to root out and eliminate any and all insurrection activity. He led this taskforce from his destroyer to many victories for close to a year when he was given the Prometheus-class Heavy Carrier Alcove for his efforts.

The Alcove herself has participated in many operations and battles, most notably Operation: CLEAN HOUSE, the ships biggest claim to fame. When Captain Artur managed to track an insurrection ships to what was suspected to be their main base he took no chances, or prisoners. He jumped in system with 31 warships versus the insurrections 18. Being mostly upgraded freighters and old UNSC vessels they didn't last long. Soon after their fleet was eliminated the insurrectionists on the planet sent a message offering to surrender, they said that they had civilians. Captain Artur's response was, "You didn't care about civilians on Talista, you didn't care about civilians on Mamore, you're not civilians, your terrorists." Instead of risking a ground campaign that had the potential to cause heavy casualties he instead ordered that the Alcove be moved into low orbit over the planet. He and the rest of his fleet watched as they bombarded the rebel stronghold from orbit, one thing was certain that day, no one felt remorse, why should they feel sorry for a bunch of terrorists and murders.

A/N: Okay i have chapter 3 planned out and i normally will be updating likely once a week, i do most of my writing on Saturdays. Also if you saw this chapter before i re uploaded it i mistakenly uploaded chapter 1 twice, this is chapter 2. Most chapters i upload should be 1000-2000 words.


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